Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a vehicle control apparatus that controls an own vehicle such that an inter-vehicle distance between a preceding vehicle and the own vehicle becomes a reference distance, and a vehicle control program.
Related Art
As the above-described vehicle control apparatus, an apparatus is known that changes a target vehicle speed to a higher value when passing is performed (refer to, for example, JP-A-H06-008747).
In the above-described vehicle control apparatus, in a state in which passing cannot be performed, the own vehicle catches up to the preceding vehicle. Therefore, when the own vehicle attempts passing when the state in which passing cannot be performed changes to a state in which passing can be performed, the inter-vehicle distance is already short. Therefore, the own vehicle is required to accelerate after entering the passing lane. As a result, a problem occurs in that passing cannot be performed smoothly.